Decay
by Ji-soo
Summary: His eyes keep getting duller by the day, by the week, by the month and by the years.


Summary: His eyes keep getting duller by the day, by the week, by the month and by the years.

A/N: So I honestly was so angry about what they did to poor Hinata because she deserved more than what she got. Instead of being a powerful ninja, they made her a housewife, weak and unable to even keep her family together. What i think is worse is someone who knows their marriage isn't working but is selfish enough to keep that person with them even if they're not happy. Anyway I hope you guys enjoy this, it was just a short one shot that I had rolling in my head so it's only a one shot but hopefully I'll have more to come. R&R~!

* * *

The early years of their marriage are happy in her opinion, she slowly starts to see another side to him and learns more about him, learns about his vision for the future and watches him grow in strength from Chunin to Jounin and then as he disappears into the ANBU. He is gone often, sometimes months but he always comes back and she is always there for him, she cooks ramen for him and watches in content as he sleeps most of the day away before being whisked into Hokage-sama's office for meetings and also training recruits.

It's not as if she has been slacking in her training, she trains as much as she can to be able to be worthy of being his wife. She takes missions and makes Jounin but can't bear the thought of going into ANBU, no instead she stalls and then when she's twenty-three years old, she feels a call to her very being to have children. Naruto-kun is away on a mission for one month with his squad but she's patient, she's learned to be and starts paperwork to declare her temporary retirement. No one really says anything, not even her own father because they know the risks and having children as early as possible is the only option for most ninja. Their very job makes their life expectancy to be very short.

It's a fast process and on the eve that Naruto-kun returns, she makes his favorite ramen and makes small talk, she looks into his eyes and notices he looks tired and his eyes look a bit dull but it's probably from the mission. When he rises from his seat to head over to the couch, she grabs his hand and she watches with a pink tinge in her cheeks as he finally looks into her eyes. The question is silent but she knows what he's asking.

'What is it?'

"Naruto-kun… I w-want to sleep w-with you…" She's clutching his hand very tightly but watches as he looks at her more clearly and gives her a tiny smile, he starts pulling her towards their room and she can hear her heart beating wildly. They have only been intimate four times in the five years they have been married but she's okay with that and treasures each encounter closely in her heart.

It lasts ten minutes but she understands, he's exhausted and can barely keep his eyes open. She covers him with the blanket and feels slightly disappointed but she can feel his seed inside her and starts to imagine the small child that is forming inside of her and what it will look like. She hopes the child will have Naruto-kun's eyes; it's what she loves the most about him.

He's gone in the morning before she wakes up and she shakes her head fondly instead she feels if there is a difference in her body and though very faint, something tells her she's with child. She clutches his pillow in her arms and inhales deeply, they would finally have a little family of their own.

* * *

During the last three weeks of her pregnancy, she asks Naruto-kun to stop taking missions for the birth of their child, though it feels like begging. He had started to become distant once Hinata was three months along and was sure the pregnancy wouldn't fall through but she knew it was because he was scared of becoming a father. In the following six months, she sees Naruto-kun as much as ten times because he had been taking missions that would last one or two months and while before that wouldn't have bothered her, she wants him to be there for her and their son, she wants to see his eyes as he hears their sons heart beating or for feel the baby kick. She would love to have his hands on her stomach and just love them but he won't.

Naruto-kun is reluctant but agrees once her father visits and makes it very clear that Naruto-kun should be at home to see their son being born. Hinata looks at his eyes and sees dull blue eyes, they hadn't been that way nine months back he's tired and stressed and she understands, she has to.

For the most part, Naruto-kun is almost like a ghost in their house. He eats with her, helps her up the stairs, shops for clothes for the baby and sleeps beside her but he might as well not be there.

It's one day before her due date and she starts to feel a little prickle on her back, she knows what it means and excitedly waits for Naruto-kun to come back home from the store with juice.

Instead, she gets a visit from one his subordinates from ANBU to let her know that he had to be called away for an emergency but he would be accompanying her to the hospital and where was her hospital bag? She numbly points towards the bag by the door and the pain goes from a prickle to jolts of pain, her hospital bag in his hand, he grabs her by the elbow and gently starts leading her out from her house.

Hinata is admitted immediately and taken to a private room in the hospital; the ANBU operative stands by her bed and watches as she struggles with the pain. She can feel tears prickle at her eyes but she holds them back by the skin of her teeth.

"Taichou said this: 'Hinata, I'll be back.'"

She lays back, the pain is coming and going and leaving her exhausted. "Where did he go?"

"It's classified. Would you like to hold my hand? I heard it makes the pain a bit lesser."

She finally breaks into tears and holds onto this strange man's hand as another contraction passes through her. She doesn't remember much after she starts crying, her father and sister are there to comfort her, as are her teammates and Kurenai-Sensei, the ANBU never leaves her side or the room.

He's the one to cut the cord.

"Taichou said to cut it."

* * *

Hinata is home for three days after being released from the hospital with her son, Uzumaki Boruto, when her sister comes to her house and has a furious look in her pale eyes. Boruto is quietly sleeping in the sling on her chest, she can't quite stop staring in adoration at the tiny whiskered face with tufts of blonde hair and the tiny peeks of bright blue that she sees sometimes.

"What's wrong?" Hanabi clutches at her kimono in anger, something must have angered her greatly.

"Naruto is back, he's been back for three days…"

Hinata feels her heart stop.

"Sakura-san is back in the village and so is Uchiha Sasuke…"

It's only the weight of Boruto on her front that keeps her grounded, but she feels a cold sweat break out in her forehead and tears start to form again in her eyes.

"Sakura-san gave birth three days ago, Tsunade-sama and the former Team Seven were there as well…"

Hinata can feel her head spinning but that must mean that Naruto was there for Sakura-san's birth and not for his own son, he was there to guide Sakura-san through the pain and hold her hand and hear the child's first cries. He was in front of Uchiha Sasuke, the one person who he held above everyone else.

It's another entire day before Naruto-kun finally comes home, it's the middle of the night and she's rocking Boruto after having fed him. He steps into the nursery that he gave no opinion on and into the moonlight, his blue eyes are brighter and she feels her heart soften just a bit. He runs his hand through her hair gently, stops at the base of her neck and squeezes just a little, he holds it there for few seconds before he pulls away and instead runs a finger down a small button nose, tiny eyes flicker open and a smile forms on a chubby face. Her heart is softening and she can't stop it.

"Hi, Boruto… I'm your father…" Naruto-kun crouches on the floors and stares at the small baby in her arms. She looks at him and sees that the light of the moon did a good job at hiding the darkness in his eyes; they're duller.

Hinata is too soft just as her father had said because she forgives Naruto-kun so easily but she loves seeing him holding Boruto and whispering away the small child. It's only later that she finds out that Sakura-san was gravelly injured on her way to Konoha; she had almost lost little Uchiha Sarada.

* * *

She has a startling realization when Uchiha-san and Sakura-san are visiting their home with their daughter. Both Boruto and Sarada are on the floor, they're eight months old and can now sit on their own. She's making a small lunch for them with Sakura-san when she stops and stares at Naruto-kun, his eyes are bright, so bright just like when he was younger. He's laughing and slapping Sasuke-san on the arm at something or another but he's so bright and Sasuke-san basks in that brightness, almost as if the very sun is shining on him.

"It's okay." Sakura-san says, she's chopping vegetables for onigiri filling. "They're always like that."

Hinata nods and continues watching her husband touch Sasuke-san as much as possible and the prickly Uchiha allowing it, even teasing him to keep doing it. If she didn't know them at all, she would assume they were a small family with two small children, they looked like a happy family.

She looks away but not without noticing that Naruto-kun and Sasuke-san were sitting almost shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee.

Blue eyes are bright; they're as bright as the blue sky above.

* * *

Boruto is six years old when Hinata wants another child; she wants to expand her family and to cover for her husbands growing absence. She waits until Boruto is fast asleep when she rolls over and shakes Naruto-kun awake.

"I want another child…"

Why were his eyes like that? They were getting practically dead.

"Ah…"

She pulls her shorts off and waits for him to get on top of her, she blushes at the callous way she's doing this but he's not objecting and soon he's inside of her and the bed is rocking. She kisses his lips and threads their fingers together, they're finished in five minutes. Naruto-kun rolls over and falls asleep almost immediately after pulling his pants back up.

She pulls her shorts back up and wonders if she should ask him to stop his ANBU work, he must be seeing horrible things even for a ninja for his eyes to be like that.

* * *

When she's eight months pregnant and walking around the village with a six-year-old Boruto, Naruto-kun has been on mission for all of her pregnancy and while she knows that no details will be given to her on the duration of the mission, she does know from Shikamaru-kun that Naruto-kun is not expected back for another five months. He will miss the birth of their daughter just he did Boruto's and he had left the same ANBU operative to accompany her again to the hospital.

She doesn't blame him, she knows how ANBU is, how long their missions sometimes are but that doesn't stop the hurt that's growing in her heart.

"Okaa-san, I want ice cream!" She smiles at Boruto and feels happy, he's just like Naruto-kun when he was younger and it makes Hinata happy to see that. It almost feels like the old Naruto-kun was back with her.

They sit a secluded booth and she watches indulgently as Boruto devours his ice cream.

 _"Can you believe she's pregnant again?"_

 _"I know! I mean I guess I would try to have as many kids as I could if I was his wife…"_

 _"You're right, he's going on suicide missions at any chance he gets…"_

 _"Don't say that!"_

 _"It's true! I mean he changed so much when they got married, now he just looks like the life was sucked out of him…"_

 _"Well Hinata doesn't match him, she trapped him in a marriage he's not happy in…"_

 _"Shush!"_

 _"I don't care! It's the truth and I'm very surprised she hasn't realized it, she just walks around like she's on cloud nine all the damn time!"_

 _"Stop it! Let's go!"_

* * *

Himawari is a year old when Naruto-kun finally holds her; she doesn't recognize him and starts crying.

Naruto-kun hands her back and goes to train.

The next morning, she wakes up looks at her side and it's empty. She knows where he is and goes into the living room, he's sprawled on the couch with paperwork all around him. He hasn't slept in her bed for more than half their marriage; they haven't had breakfast together in just as long.

She watches as he stirs awake and stares at dull blue eyes and realizes it's her making him this way but she's selfish enough to keep it that way because at the stairs is Boruto rubbing bright blue eyes.


End file.
